Miraklu
I.
Mosta, Malta. 1942. The Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady
It’s half-buried in the floorboards, pulsing from the breach.
His eyes fall upon the wreckage; a bomb resting between pews and pulpit.
Above, the gold dome weeps from its newfound orifice.
Cloudy wound hemorrhaging roses cut from stone.
They name it a dud. Defuse its failed insides.
Ferry it by boat and bury it beneath water.
His middle name is Mary, sometimes translated
to drop of the sea.
My grandfather is meant to die young,
just not in this church.
II.
Rabat, Malta. 1989.
We’re perched on a rock face
overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
My mother, still the most beautiful girl
on the island, allows the wind
to tangle her hair, to thrash
upon the crests of her cheekbones.
Her name is Mary, sometimes translated
to rebellion.
She speaks of girlhood, of streets bathed in beige
and smoke-filled cubbyholes cut from rock.
Says her father would emerge
from those darkened doorways smiling;
cigarette suspended between his lips,
outstretched palm full of lira.
III.
Clearwater, Florida. 1979.
His lung’s sick carries across the house and nestles
in the hallways of her ears as għana through an open window.
On the nightstand, a single lily
collapses like a dying star.
They name it loss. Burn his failed insides.
Bury him in the suburbs beneath a southern oak.
After the funeral, she returns home
to an unfamiliar silence.
To her father’s side of the bed, already occupied.
Buckling beneath the weight of another man’s back.
***
Photograph of Kristen Rouisse by Kristen Rouisse.
